Rain Phoenix, the sister of the late River Phoenix, has teamed up with Michael Stipe for a new song called “Time is the Killer.” The song will appear on Time Gone, a Double A-side single with her brother’s band Aleka’s Attic. It drops on February 14th via Kro Records/LaunchLeft.
The release features two previously unreleased Aleka’s Attic tracks, “Where I’d Gone” and “Scales & Fishnails,” alongside Rain and Stipe’s “Time is the Killer,” which is Rain’s first single as a solo artist.
“For me, [‘Time is the Killer’ is] about impermanence, our futile attempts at avoiding it and the bittersweet outcome of everything changing all the time,” Rain tells Rolling Stone. “I like to hear what other people think about what it means.”
Of her collaborating with Stipe, she says they have been friends for a long time, but the request didn’t come easily. “It was so close to home for me, it was difficult, but I got up the courage and asked. Stipe asked to hear the song,” she says. “He loved it. He said yes. I am still in shock. His voice is magic.”
A trailer for Time Gone features childhood footage of Rain and River along with scenes of River performing live. The clip is soundtracked to Aleka’s Attic’s “Scales & Fishnails.”
Rain says she originally mixed the Aleka’s Attic’s songs back in the late Nineties, but “I felt compelled and driven to. I can’t explain it except to say the time feels right” to put them out now, around the 25th anniversary of River Phoenix’s death. Phoenix died on October 31st, 1993). She says she was already considering releasing the songs when Kro Records approached her. “I love it when things unfold like that,” she adds.
“River was so ahead of his time. I feel the songs are still relevant in 2019,” she says.